The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1887-04-23
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
OLD SETTLERS.
SARAH EDWARDS HENsHAw.

Few know of life's beginnings,
They count not life's first steps;
The solitary nights
Passed pale and ANXIOUS by The sickly lamp.
The goal achieved. They do not trace
Its struggle or its long expectancy.
But that youth
IL buoyant, confident, and strong in hope.
Men would behold Its threshold and despair.
This has respect TO warrior, poet states
man, painter, sculptor, singer, preacher, au.
thor; their "goal achieved" But few, COM
paratively, "get there l. e., to goals Of
eminence" How about the well.balanced
mind, the sweet temper, the high aim, q
matured benefcent character, in man or
woman? Do not these, too, require strug'
gle' They are the product of mothers
love and watching, fathers care and toll,
teachers patience; of social environment
and of ones own unwavering, patient, per-
severing, noblest endeavor. BY as much as
it is good and great, lovely, cultured and
useful, character involves, aim and effort.
No poem, painting, statue ever cost 80 much.
None ever had such value TO society, such
influence in forming lives.
new family in the settlement marks an
era. 1t has to do with the atmosphere
where child life is nurtured. Its influence
reaches into many households near and far.
1t constructs and builds with the best or the
worst. 1t helps or binders on great scale,
more or less. II will be remembered to the
credit of this family of lS49, that II did not
DO otherwise, but provided itself a home, a
house to live in with doors and windows,
and all that they signihed, as TO prepared
ness for social relationships, fraternity and
hospitality. The brick church built that
year by the Episcopalians (now Gay Sons
factory welcomed them to place of wor-
ship. Its congregation, Rev. Chas. |. Kelly,
rector, included them among the clearly
beloved brethren and opened to them wide
fields of usefulness in the Ladies' Society,
church fair and Sunday schools They en-
tered this open door and took hold vigorous
ly in person, and with purse, with good
will doing service, bearing a part in the
worlds redemption. But social and benev-
client activities in that "far off, long ago."
were not limited to a little coterie in q single
congregation, or to "our church, only.
People of like cultivation were socially one.
Our "best society," was cordial, that is to
say, had heart in it; had q sense of fitness
and an appreciation Of worth. II grew in
excellence by its necessities in the struggle
for we'll being and advantage. 1t had less Of
costly lace and diamonds; less, too, it may
be, of the common place and vulgar; of opera
house and ten cent shows. The parson
himself, could not have known progressive
euchre party, if a specimen had been shown
him. La Sale county, that now has eighty
thousand population, then had seventeen
thousand. And not one Of those primitive
people could have told what "dude" or
doodle" meant, OF how akin they were, if
supposed to be in any way related.
Winter and summer came and went.
Motherhood and child life came, and the
world moved on apscc, with enlarging sphere
and responsibility, perhaps of care. One
may not enter in to know all that. One
standing without may know something of
that.
There is no ireside, howe'er defended
But has one vacant CHAIR.
With this mother it was not in the ordin.
airy way. 1t came in unlocked for and sub.
DUNG shock, in life's CHEEKY day sudden
stroke, each half decade, on the great dial
Of time,
"peaing into mine ears
the alarum of deaths accomplished work.
Little Charlie, four years old, Stanley eight
The good mother away, among strangers, and
instantly. The brother by accident. The
husband at his post in the army in Texas.
These FIVE, in those few years, the prey and
spoil Of dea,h, For that dark day the plant
of the old Hebrew might have been heard
from her lips Clover and friend hast thou
put far from me. My children are gone
forth from me and are not. | have none to
set up my tent any more, or to spread forth
my curtains" To these heartsorrows and
disappointnents one more was added. The
breaking up of her Ottawa home, and re-
moval for residence among strangers.
We will give her parting words, and leave
this part Of the narrative for the present.